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Robert Toombs
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Robert Toombs
Robert Augustus Toombs (July 2, 1810 – December 15, 1885) was an American politician from Georgia, who was an important figure in the formation of the Confederacy. From a privileged background as a wealthy planter and slaveholder, Toombs embarked on a political career marked by effective oratory, although he also acquired a reputation for hard living, disheveled appearance, and irascibility. He was identified with Alexander H. Stephens's libertarian wing of secessionist opinion, and in contradiction to the nationalist Jefferson Davis, Toombs believed a civil war to be neither inevitable nor winnable by the South.
Appointed as Secretary of State of the Confederacy (which lacked political parties), Toombs was against the decision to attack Fort Sumter, and resigned from Davis's cabinet. He was commissioned a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army and was wounded at the Battle of Antietam, where he performed creditably. During the 1865 Battle of Columbus, Toombs's reluctance to use canister shot on a mixture of Union and Confederate soldiers resulted in the loss of a key bridge in the war's final significant action. He avoided detention by traveling to Europe. On his return two years later, he declined to ask for a pardon, and successfully stood for election in Georgia when the Reconstruction era ended in 1877.
Born near Washington, Georgia in 1810, Robert Augustus Toombs was the fifth child of Catherine Huling and planter Robert Toombs. He was of English descent. His father died when he was five. After private education, Toombs entered Franklin College at the University of Georgia in Athens when he was fourteen.[citation needed] During his time at Franklin College, Toombs was a member of the Demosthenian Literary Society.[citation needed] After the university chastised Toombs for unbecoming conduct in a card-playing incident,[citation needed] he continued his education at Union College, in Schenectady, New York. He graduated there in 1828. He returned to the South to study law at the University of Virginia Law School in Charlottesville.
Shortly after his admission to the Georgia bar, on November 18, 1830, Toombs married his childhood sweetheart, Martha Juliann ("Julia") DuBose (1813–1883), daughter of Ezekiel DuBose and his wife of Lincoln County, Georgia. They had three children. Lawrence Catlett (1831–1832) died of scarlet fever. Mary Louisa (1833–1855) married and died in childbirth, along with her baby. Sarah (Sallie) (1835–1866) married Dudley M. DuBose, a distant cousin. She died of complications of childbirth, together with her fifth child Julian.
Toombs was admitted to the Georgia bar and began his legal practice in 1830. He entered politics, gaining election to the Georgia House of Representatives, where he served in 1838. He failed to win re-election, but was elected again in the next term, serving 1840–1841. He failed again to win re-election, but was elected in 1842, serving a third, non-successive term, 1843–1844.
Toombs won a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 1844, and would win re-election several times. He served several terms in the lower chamber until 1853. In 1852 the state legislature elected him to the US Senate. There Toombs joined his close friend and fellow representative Alexander H. Stephens from Crawfordville, Georgia. Their friendship became a powerful personal and political bond, and they effectively defined and articulated Georgia's position on national issues in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Toombs, like Stephens, emerged as a states' rights partisan and became a national Whig. After that party dissolved, Toombs aided in the creation of the short-lived Constitutional Union Party in the early 1850s.
As did most Whigs, Toombs considered Texas to be the 28th state, but he opposed the Mexican–American War.
Toombs and his brother Gabriel owned large plantations and operated them using enslaved African Americans. Toombs increased his personal slave holdings as his wealth increased. Toombs owned six slaves in 1840. By 1850, he owned 17 slaves. In 1860, he owned 16 slaves at his Wilkes County plantation, and an additional 32 slaves at his 3,800-acre plantation in Stewart County, Georgia on the Chattahoochee River.
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Robert Toombs
Robert Augustus Toombs (July 2, 1810 – December 15, 1885) was an American politician from Georgia, who was an important figure in the formation of the Confederacy. From a privileged background as a wealthy planter and slaveholder, Toombs embarked on a political career marked by effective oratory, although he also acquired a reputation for hard living, disheveled appearance, and irascibility. He was identified with Alexander H. Stephens's libertarian wing of secessionist opinion, and in contradiction to the nationalist Jefferson Davis, Toombs believed a civil war to be neither inevitable nor winnable by the South.
Appointed as Secretary of State of the Confederacy (which lacked political parties), Toombs was against the decision to attack Fort Sumter, and resigned from Davis's cabinet. He was commissioned a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army and was wounded at the Battle of Antietam, where he performed creditably. During the 1865 Battle of Columbus, Toombs's reluctance to use canister shot on a mixture of Union and Confederate soldiers resulted in the loss of a key bridge in the war's final significant action. He avoided detention by traveling to Europe. On his return two years later, he declined to ask for a pardon, and successfully stood for election in Georgia when the Reconstruction era ended in 1877.
Born near Washington, Georgia in 1810, Robert Augustus Toombs was the fifth child of Catherine Huling and planter Robert Toombs. He was of English descent. His father died when he was five. After private education, Toombs entered Franklin College at the University of Georgia in Athens when he was fourteen.[citation needed] During his time at Franklin College, Toombs was a member of the Demosthenian Literary Society.[citation needed] After the university chastised Toombs for unbecoming conduct in a card-playing incident,[citation needed] he continued his education at Union College, in Schenectady, New York. He graduated there in 1828. He returned to the South to study law at the University of Virginia Law School in Charlottesville.
Shortly after his admission to the Georgia bar, on November 18, 1830, Toombs married his childhood sweetheart, Martha Juliann ("Julia") DuBose (1813–1883), daughter of Ezekiel DuBose and his wife of Lincoln County, Georgia. They had three children. Lawrence Catlett (1831–1832) died of scarlet fever. Mary Louisa (1833–1855) married and died in childbirth, along with her baby. Sarah (Sallie) (1835–1866) married Dudley M. DuBose, a distant cousin. She died of complications of childbirth, together with her fifth child Julian.
Toombs was admitted to the Georgia bar and began his legal practice in 1830. He entered politics, gaining election to the Georgia House of Representatives, where he served in 1838. He failed to win re-election, but was elected again in the next term, serving 1840–1841. He failed again to win re-election, but was elected in 1842, serving a third, non-successive term, 1843–1844.
Toombs won a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 1844, and would win re-election several times. He served several terms in the lower chamber until 1853. In 1852 the state legislature elected him to the US Senate. There Toombs joined his close friend and fellow representative Alexander H. Stephens from Crawfordville, Georgia. Their friendship became a powerful personal and political bond, and they effectively defined and articulated Georgia's position on national issues in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Toombs, like Stephens, emerged as a states' rights partisan and became a national Whig. After that party dissolved, Toombs aided in the creation of the short-lived Constitutional Union Party in the early 1850s.
As did most Whigs, Toombs considered Texas to be the 28th state, but he opposed the Mexican–American War.
Toombs and his brother Gabriel owned large plantations and operated them using enslaved African Americans. Toombs increased his personal slave holdings as his wealth increased. Toombs owned six slaves in 1840. By 1850, he owned 17 slaves. In 1860, he owned 16 slaves at his Wilkes County plantation, and an additional 32 slaves at his 3,800-acre plantation in Stewart County, Georgia on the Chattahoochee River.
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